The Higher Education We Choose, Collectively: Reembodying and Repoliticizing Choice

Rhoades, Gary

Journal of Higher Education, v85 n6 p917-930 Nov-Dec 2014

Reviewing three key areas of literature in our field (college choice, state policy, and faculty) the article identifies gaps that we can fill by reembodying and repoliticizing "choice," by which is meant moving beyond the individualized and "neutral" market logic in addressing the actions of collective entities in relation to politically charged policy issues, which we largely overlook. In calling our field to focus more on the "the higher education we choose," the article suggests reframing the prevailing premises of key public policy debates. It also suggests rethinking and recognizing the role that in our applied field we collectively play, in research and practice, in reconstructing academe. Underlying my centering of the "collective" throughout, is a call to recenter higher education's social value and societal benefits in the higher education we choose, collectively.